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Month: November 2017

Officially in the Church of England advent starts next Sunday, but because we have 3.5 weeks left at school we’re starting advent now. I’m not sure how many of you have got decorations up yet? If you’ve started to listen to the music, watched the films, bought the presents, wrapped the presents?

Advent is a time of preparation, preparing for the coming of a King. As with so many things we can take that to be a practical preparation, all the things I’ve listed above. Let’s face it, that’s what we are encouraged to do by the shops. However, it is important to remember that it is a time to prepare our hearts and our minds.

Throughout advent we tend to look at the Old Testament, where we can see that God is trying to prepare the world for Jesus. In Isaiah 40 it says

A voice of one calling:

‘In the wilderness prepare

the way for the LORD;

make straight in the desert

a highway for our God.

The people knew that they were expecting a saviour, that the Lord was coming, but was Jesus what they were expecting? Probably not. The people were prepared but Jesus did not match up with their expectations.

Are you a present guesser? Or even a present finder? I used to search round my parents house finding presents before Christmas. One year I found two pairs of Wallace and gromit slipper socks, so I told my brother that we were each getting a pair of slipper socks. Christmas Day comes we are opening presents and… I get both pairs of slipper socks. My brother was gutted, because he thought he was getting a pair. It turns out if I had looked carefully I would have seen that they wouldn’t have fitted him anyway. So I had to by him a new pair of slipper socks from my Christmas money!

You might think that it’s silly to have a time of preparation for Christmas, afterlife we know the story, our faith is based on the belief that Jesus was born and turned out be the saviour that wasn’t expected.

But… do we get complacent about that? Do we truly recognise what that means? Or do we focus on the decorations, all the extra services, and the dinner?

We may understand what Christmas is celebrating but are we recognising what Jesus is still doing in our lives today, or what Jesus wants to do in and through us?

This is what advent is about, that reminder that we need to stop, and to prepare our hearts and minds to welcome Jesus again. We may have ideas or what God wants to do with us, or what we’d like God to do with us, but as we can see from the Christmas story, that we know so well, God doesn’t tend to go along the normal line, or do what we expect.

Bill McKibben said

“Advent: the time to listen for footsteps – you can’t hear footsteps when

you’re running yourself.”

The theme this week is anticipation. Christmas seems to be filled with a false anticipation as there are people who are disappointed with presents that they open, disappointed with the reaction someone gives to a present, that the family time didn’t quite live up to the hype.

However, we can anticipate that God will work in our lives, and that it will be for good. We need to take this time in advent to put our own agendas and thoughts aside, but to anticipate that God will speak to us, if we take the time to listen.

Challenge: how can you practically take time each day during advent to listen to what God is saying to you?

Prayer: father God, we thank you that you continue to work in our lives today, may we take this advent time to stop, and listen, and welcome you in. Amen

Year 7 have been looking at rights and responsibilities in religious studies. As part of this unit they have looked at the universal declaration of human rights, and they had to choose one of the human rights that is being violated on to do a case study on. In the group I teach the majority of groups chose ‘the right to freedom from slavery’ I have been reflecting on why this might be, and I think it is purely because they didn’t like the idea of having to do things for other people without anything in return. We like to be recognised for what we do, and yet one of our school values and the theme of the song we are looking at this week, is serving.

Service, is, the idea of doing something for someone without getting anything return, I guess the difference is choice. A slave is forced to do something, a servant is choosing to do it. Even a servant in a stately home, they may not have enjoyed what they were doing but they chose to do it in the first place.

Our hymn this week is servant king by Graham Kendrick. Straight away we can see two words that don’t appear to go together, servant king. Well, they do go together because usually a king is someone we would associate with having servants, but not to be one themselves.

This hymn talks about the choices God made when he came to earth to save us. He could have come with a fanfare of trumpets, cheerleaders and told everyone what to do, but instead as the first line says “from heaven you came helpless babe, entered our world your glory veiled”. Who would ever think that a helpless baby was ever going to be a King?

The entire song talks about the apparent contradiction of Jesus being King. In verse 3 it says “hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered”. The God, who created the world, ended up dying on a cross. Giving his life that we might live.

How often do we put other people’s needs before ourselves? That’s what service is about, and we had the perfect example of that in the person of Jesus. The night before he died, he washed his disciples feet – and they will have been MESSY! When his disciples were asking to be sitting next to him in heaven he said

Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many

The kingdom of heaven has upside down values, well, they’re actually the right way, but are upside down in comparison to the world. In the world we are called to show importance and power, and yet in the kingdom of God we are called to serve others. Through serving, we are demonstrating the love that we have been given by God. That service may be holding a door open, or helping someone who is upset, or volunteering somewhere. It doesn’t matter, it’s all service.

So often the idea of God can be so huge and distant that we cannot even get our heads around it, but within Christianity we were shown God clearly. We worship a God who was a servant, who didn’t crave power, but who gave love. As our act of worship, we should do the same.

Challenge: how can you serve others this week?

Prayer: (from the final verse of the hymn).

So let us learn how to serve, and in our lives enthrone him, each other’s needs to prefer, for it is Christ we’re serving. Amen

On my walk to school in the morning I walk through Beverley Meadows, and this week as I have walked through I have felt like Dumbledore from Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone. It’s the time of year where I am leaving the house in the dark (and often returning home in the dark as well). As I walk it gets lighter and as I walk through Beverley meadows the street lamps go out. This is when I feel like Dumbledore when he is preparing the street for Hardin to drop off Harry at the Dursley’s house and he uses a deluminator to remove the lights from from the street lamps. Why was he using the deluminator? Because he was hiding, hiding what they were doing and hiding Harry’s identity. That’s what darkness allows us to do, it allows us to hide but it also stops us from seeing.

This week we are looking at the hymn Shine, Jesus, Shine, which starts off with the line Lord, the light of your love is shining, in the midst of the darkness shining. What is this light that is being spoken about? Throughout the Old Testament God had sent many prophets with many messages to the people, but although it made a difference everyone always went back to their ways – their ways of darkness.

The darkness being hiding from God, ignoring the truth, focussing on themselves. So God decided he needed to send light to the world, in fact, he needed to bring light to the world. So Jesus came to earth, the embodiment of God. He was seen as standing from before he was born, but once he started his ministry there was nothing but light. He didn’t just give a message from God he lived a message from God. He loved those who weren’t loved, he spoke to those no one else would speak to, he challenged what the worship of God had become.

The light that Jesus gave shone, and it changed people’s perspectives. The light that Jesus gave was a reflection of God the Father. People could see that light, they then had a choice to follow that light and reflect that light or to hide from the light. We have the same option today.

In 2 Corinthians it says “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”

Each of us has the light of God in our hearts. Do we choose to see that, and reflect that to the world, or do we chose to ignore it? It’s not actually an easy decision, and even Jesus struggled with it. After all, quite often the light of God, the light of love goes against what society tells us is acceptable. Jesus made a lot of enemies from the people who did not want to see the light, they were more comfortable in the dark.

If we can make enemies why would we choose to reflect God’s love. Simply because God first loved us, by experiencing the love of God for ourselves, and in our lives, we will not only want to reflect God’s love to others but we won’t be able to help it.

The deluminator is a powerful tool but darkness is only a lack of light and we are probably all capable of performing actions which act as deluminator for God’s light, how much more powerful is illuminating the world with the love of God.

Challenge: what actions do you do that might act as deluminator for God’s love? What actions can you do to reflect God’s love?

Prayer: thank you God for the love that you have for us, thank you for the light that came when Jesus came to the earth. Help us to reflect your light to the world. Amen

This week I was looking at Facebook and I saw some pictures which made my heart melt. The photos were put up by a friend’s brother. He lives in the Phillipines and he had come over with his family, and it was pictures of his sons with their grandparents. One of the sets of the photos were when they went to a cemetery to visit the place of rest of my friend. Clare died 8 years ago and I know that this visit will have been filled with stories of Clare, for the boys to learn about their aunty. I know that I regularly talk about her. When I was on holiday with friends from school last year we spoke about her so much, and it felt like she was there.

This week we take a break from looking at our hymns to think about the importance of remembering, as we approach Remembrance Day. Our thought for the week comes from Czeslaw Milosz who says ‘the living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story’.

This is important for Clare… this is important for all those who are no longer with us… everyone has a message, everyone has a passion, everyone has a story… if we know what that was it is important for us to share.

People may argue that although yes, it is important for everyone, is it is especially important when it comes to those who have lost their lives so that we can have ours.

I don’t think anyone would say that we like the idea of war, however it is something that exists. Some would say it is a necessity. I have to teach about war a lot, even with year 7 we discuss the fact that we have human rights because so many people lost theirs during the holocaust, and World War II. Countless lives have been lost through the various wars that have happened through history. Many of those lives have been given, because those people were passionate about defending their country, or defending the innocent lives of others. I am no expert but I don’t think anyone goes in to the armed forces because they want to kill, they want to protect, and they do so knowing that they may have to give the biggest sacrifice… their own life.

This is why we remember, this is why we tell their story. By remembering why those people did what they did, by remembering the atrocities that have happened through war, we can but hope and pray that we will strive to not get to a place where war is deemed necessary in the first place. We are getting to a time now where there are not many people left from the two world wars, therefore we need to keep the story.

As Christians our faith is based around remembrance. Remembering the sacrifice that was made when an innocent man died in the place of all of us. He died so that we might live. Every time we share the Eucharist that is what we are doing. As Christians we are called to share his story with others that they may also know what was done for them.

We actively remember this who died in war on the 11th November, we actively remember the story of Jesus in a Church service or act of worship. But maybe, in the same way that we are called to live lives sharing the life and sacrifice that Jesus made for us, so that we can have eternal life; we should also make more of an effort to remember the life and sacrifices that millions of people, and their families have made that we may have the every day freedom that we know and love, and take for granted.

Challenge: is there anyone in your family who has fought in the armed forces? Can you try to find out more about their story so that you can share that with others?

Prayer: father God we live in a damaged world, where to often the answer seems to be hatred and violence. Help us to remember that we also live in a world that has so much more freedom because of the sacrifices that people have made for us. We pray for those who are in the armed forces, and we remember those who have given their lives that we may have life. Amen